So I have been reading Whitney Gaskell off and on for years. I noticed she hasn't put out something new in years though. I decided to do a re-read of some of the books I owned and I can't understand why I loved this book when I read it before. Maybe because I was younger and thought the whole plot was so romantic. Now I am older and call BS more I guess.

"True Love and Other Lies" follows Claire. Claire is a travel writer who has pretty much given up on love after being shat upon by her ex called Sawyer (that name you guys). But she has an absolute awesome meet cute (yeah...it was alright) with a lawyer named Jack on her way to London. Claire feels herself getting excited about Jack, but second guesses everything he says and does after he expresses interest in seeing her while she is in London. A huge surprise is in store for Claire though when she finds out who Jack was dating before he started seeing her.

Claire was driving me up the wall through most of the book. She hates her job, has a dubious relationship with her sister (who she diagnoses as anorexic or bulimic) and acts like an asshole towards her parents when they make other holiday plans without her (this is after she goes into how she doesn't want to go out of town to see them) and also acts like a jerk towards her best friend Maddie when she makes other plans to go out and once again Claire doesn't want to see her since she has plans. Did you follow all that? Pretty much Claire wants everyone to be thinking about how her all the time while ignoring how she is not putting any effort into her personal relationships at all. She's also a jerk at work and I didn't find myself rooting for her at all. I think some of the characters she was tormenting would be writing into "Ask A Manager" cause of the crap she pulls.

I think I just got tired of Claire and her woe is me thing she had going through the whole book. Her own mother tells her she has self esteem issues. But honestly, I don't think that's it. She just acts contradictory about every little thing and it drives you up the wall.

The secondary characters don't work that well. There is Claire's best friend Maddie, that I wish we had gotten more details about since most of the book is about their relationship. And Claire's next door neighbor Max who I found to be off-putting the entire time I read about him.

I did love the writing about London and New York. I wish that we got more details about Claire's travel assignments, but we just get tidbits here and there.

Without giving away the plot, I no ma'amed through most of this book. I just could not with Claire and also side eyed the hell out Jack as well. When you get to the end things fall apart (the center cannot hold) with an explanation about things that did not make any sense at all.

The book fast forwards about a year or so though and we get a happily ever after. ( )